Stay on target

You know Daleks and Davros and Missy the Master, Angels and Silence hell-bent on disaster. But do you recall the most underrated Doctor Who villains of all?

Each week, I will dig into the depths of the Whoniverse to examine one rejected, misjudged, or altogether forgotten big bad. You won’t find this charmer in any history books, despite her ancient origins.

When they materialize on a 17th century pirate ship, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory expect a swashbuckling good time.

But the good ship Fancy, stranded for eight days at the mercy of a mysterious enemy, is anything but a good time.

The ship’s crew, led by Hugh Bonneville’s Captain Henry Avery, has been terrorized by a supernatural seductress, who marks the palm of the wounded and sick with a black spot.

As told by Greek mythology, her song sends victims into a trance, luring them to apparent death.

Who has The Siren come to take this time? (via BBC)

Only, the “green singing shark in an evening gown” (played with eerie calm by Lily Cole) isn’t the dangerous creature they assume. The Doctor, believing the fallen men are not dead, convinces Avery and Amy to attract the Siren by drawing their own blood.

His suspicions are confirmed when the glowing demon’s touch transports them to an alien spaceship, trapped in a temporal rift.

Its crew long dead from exposure to a human virus, the Siren—less a murdering enchantress, more a virtual doctor—has been caring for the injured humans. The black spots are tissue samples taken for reference.

“The Curse of the Black Spot” has long been considered something of a black spot itself on Doctor Who‘s record. The throwaway episode did little to advance the plot (save for a brief appearance by Madame Kovarian and an unclear TARDIS pregnancy scan on Amy). And while it’s always fun to see Karen Gillan dress as a pirate and save the day, this chapter is of little import in the grand scheme of things.

Even the Siren—one of the few comparatively high points of the hour—lacks, as IGN’s Matt Risley put it, the qualities to become “a credible and terrifying Who villain.”

Her infamous black spot, however, has an interesting history: The term is a literary device invented by Robert Louis Stevenson for his novel “Treasure Island,” in which pirates are presented with a “black spot” to officially pronounced a verdict of guilt or judgement.

The 19th century story utilizes a circular piece of paper—one side blackened, the other side bearing a message—placed into the hand of the accused. Its origin, some speculate, is in the historical tradition of Caribbean pirates showing an Ace of Spades to a person condemned as a traitor or informer.

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